


over harbor and city

by somehowunbroken



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 02:19:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14632046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: Anthony gets traded. Alex smiles a lot.





	over harbor and city

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariadne83](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadne83/gifts).



> for ari, with whom i would share my oreos. happy birthday. <3
> 
> ari asked for brinksy/duke and said "i don't really care except that duke deserves nice things and brinksy is a very nice thing." i hope i did it justice.
> 
> title from carl sandburg's poem "[fog](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45032/fog-56d2245d7b36c)," which is adorable and mentions cats and is about chicago.

"Hey," someone says, "welcome to the team, man. It's great to have you."

Anthony looks up; it's another smiling white dude, pretty much identical to the rest of them in full practice gear, except he seems about a foot shorter than anyone else in there. DeBrincat, then. Anthony pastes a smile on his face. "Hey, thanks. Good to be here."

DeBrincat smiles even wider and shakes his head a little. "Nah. Sucks, am I right? But the guys here are good, for the most part. It'll get better."

It's the first time in his life that a teammate has outright acknowledged how much getting traded mid-season sucks, and Anthony has to blink a little. Before he can say anything, though, DeBrincat nods at him and heads to the other side of the locker room to finish getting ready for practice.

-0-

Hockey is hockey is hockey, especially when you go from one losing team to another, so the adjustment period on the ice is pretty short. Off the ice, though, it's a little tougher to navigate. Chicago is so far removed from Scottsdale that they might as well be different planets, and Anthony grew up in Quebec and spends most of his time on ice, but there's something about the way the cold in Chicago bites right through his clothes that he's not sure how to adjust for.

Brinksy laughs a little when he catches Anthony rubbing his gloved hands together. "Get the ski ones," he advises. "They have crazy insulation, and they stand up to the wind better. You might want to think about a more insulated coat, too."

"What, did they give you a weather briefing when they drafted you?" Anthony asks, jamming his hands into his armpits. He doesn't remember road games in Chicago being this bad.

"I grew up in Michigan," Brinksy says, shrugging a little and bumping into Anthony. "The whole lake effect weather thing is no joke, man. Get good winter gear before we get a storm that dumps two inches of snow an hour."

Anthony's eyes go wide. "Is it too late to request another trade?" he asks sincerely, and Brinksy laughs with his whole body.

It's.. nice, Anthony thinks. They're not close, not yet, but maybe he can assure Max that yes, he's actually making friends up here.

-0-

Brinksy nudges him on the ice, and Anthony smiles down at him on autopilot. "Lunch," he says, like it's a complete sentence, then waits.

"Lunch," Anthony repeats, mostly just to be an ass. "Midday meal, right? I've heard of it."

Brinksy laughs, and it's very, very ridiculous to think that its echo through the practice rink makes the whole place brighter, but Anthony smiles in reply anyway. "Asshole," Brinksy says, and there's definitely a note of fondness in it. "I want sushi, but Sharpy's making offended old man faces at the thought of raw fish, so I figured i'd ask what your opinions were."

"If the fish is fresh, then I'm a fan," Anthony says. "I didn't eat a lot of it in Arizona for that reason, though."

Brinksy snorts. "I can't even imagine," he says, shuddering a little. "Nah, there are some pretty nice places I've found out here. Let me introduce you to some seriously good sushi, Duke."

"I'm in," Anthony says, and they smile at each other for a moment, then another, until Coach blows his whistle and they have to turn back to drills.

-0-

Brinksy is right: the sushi _is_ good, and Anthony hadn't realised how much he'd missed it until the server sets down a massive plate between them on the table and Anthony's mouth starts watering. Brinksy takes one look at him and nudges the soy sauce towards him. "Go ahead," he says generously, and Anthony pours some into each of their dishes, then picks up his chopsticks and dives in.

"Oh my god," he groans after eating his first piece. It was something mild, maybe yellowtail, and had the crunchy bits and a bit of spicy sauce. "Is this heaven?"

"It's Chicago in early March, so like, probably not," Brinksy says. It looks like he's trying to decide where on the plate to start. "But this might be close, honestly."

Anthony goes for mackerel next, and the difference in flavour is possibly the best thing he's ever tasted in his entire life. He makes a noise that's probably borderline indecent before taking a sip of tea and grabbing something else from the plate.

He looks up when he realises that Brinksy hasn't said anything in a little while. He's usually kind of a chatterbox, and Anthony's honestly a little surprised that it had taken him more than thirty seconds to notice the silence. He blames the sushi. "All good?"

"Oh, uh," Brinksy says, grabbing the nearest piece on the plate and dunking it in way too much soy sauce before shoving it into his mouth. He gives Duke a thumbs-up as he chews.

Anthony laughs. "Okay," he says, shaking his head a little. "Let me know if there's something you don't want me to demolish completely, eh? I promise I can share if you ask nicely."

Brinksy blinks at him a few times, then swallows. "Go ahead," he says, waving at the plate. "If there's anything we want more of, we'll just order more."

"Right, thanks," Anthony says, laughing a little, and Brinksy smiles more.

The tips of his ears are a little pink, Anthony notes as he grabs a piece with fish on the inside _and_ the outside. Must've been a really spicy piece he'd had.

-0-

"Busy later?" Anthony asks the next time Brinksy slides to a stop inches from him in practice. "I'm behind on _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_. Do you watch it?"

"Stromer's been on me about it, but I haven't started it yet," Brinksy says like it's some sort of confession. "Apparently it's the funniest show ever made and I'm missing out?"

Anthony widens his eyes dramatically, putting a hand to his chest and gasping loudly. " _Alexander._ "

Brinksy laughs and shoves at Anthony's side. "Not you too!"

"Come over and we'll start from the beginning," Anthony decides. "I can always rewatch it."

"That's like me and _The Office_ ," Brinksy says. "It's just as good on rewatch."

Anthony leans in a little, like he's about to tell a secret. "It's better than _The Office_."

Now it's Brinksy's turn to do the wide-eyes-and-gasp thing. "Blasphemy."

"We'll see," Anthony says, grinning. "My place after practice. I have green and purple Gatorade, so if you want something else, you should bring it."

"Give me blue or give me death," Brinksy says instantly. "I'll grab some. Are you still in the hotel?"

Anthony shrugs with one shoulder. "I mean, yeah."

Brinksy nods a little. "I share a place with a couple other guys, but we have, like, a sofa," he offers. "Grab your DVDs and come over? We have green."

"Perfect," Anthony says, smiling. "I'll be there."

-0-

The apartment is kind of bland and boring, if Anthony's being honest about things, but it's cleaner than he expected. "Who else lives here?"

"Schmaltzy and Siks," Brinksy answers. "Hayds, when he's up."

"Nice," Anthony says, mostly because he's not sure what other response he could give to that. He brandishes the DVD case. "I brought season one. I figured that was enough for one day."

Brinksy laughs, and Anthony gets that same feeling he'd had right after they first met, that his laugh just unfolds itself until it fills every corner of the room. It's a very nice laugh. "Probably," Brinksy agrees. "I'll get it set up while you grab a Gatorade. Turns out we have two different kinds of green, so I didn't know which one to grab you."

Anthony tosses the DVD case over and heads for the kitchen. Luckily, one of the greens is his preferred green apple, so he doesn't have to make do with whatever flavour "cool blue" is trying to be. He grabs it out of the refrigerator and glances back to the living room. "You need one?" he calls.

"Nah," Brinksy calls back. "I'm good, thanks."

Anthony cracks the lid and takes a few sips before heading back into the living room; his mouth is suddenly a little dry, which is weird. He settles onto the sofa just as Brinksy gets the menu screen up, and he barely has time to prepare himself before Brinksy drops down beside him, sprawling to take up much more space than he should physically be able to take up.

"Make yourself at home," Anthony says, a little dry, as Brinksy grabs a pillow, tosses it into Anthony's lap, and lays his head down there.

Brinksy turns to grin up at him. "I mean, feel free to get comfortable, Duke. Mi casa es su casa and all that jazz."

"I speak French," Anthony says innocently. "What was that?"

Brinksy gives him a concerned look for about half a second before rolling his eyes. "Shut up, we're cuddling and watching TV," he says, turning back to the screen and hitting play.

Anthony really does love this show; it's easy to just watch and let himself laugh. Brinksy, however, is absolutely howling with laughter almost the entire time; he laughs with every ounce of himself, and it's not hard to get caught up in watching him instead of the show, seeing how his eyes light up and his laugh lines appear whenever something funny happens on the screen. He's striking, somehow, Anthony finally decides. Maybe it's his face; maybe it's how much he throws himself into everything he does. Probably it's a bit of both, if Anthony is being honest with himself.

"Hey," Brinksy says, turning to look up at Anthony, and that's when he realises that the first DVD has played all the way through. "You okay?"

"Yeah, sorry," Anthony says, blinking a few times. He knows he got caught staring, but he's reasonably sure he's not blushing hard enough for Brinksy to see. "Want to put in the next one?"

"Yeah, but first," Brinksy says, and then he's pushing himself up so he's sitting next to Anthony, still smiling, and then he leans in and brushes their lips together. "First, that," he says, pulling back a few inches, just far enough that they can look at each other.

"Oh," Anthony says, and then everything falls into place: the smiles, the lunches together, the way Anthony hadn't hesitated to ask him to hang out, the comfort he'd felt with Brinksy making himself a nest in Anthony's lap.

"We can just put the next DVD in if you want," Brinksy says, words causal but something more serious beneath them, and Anthony knows that if he wanted,they could put this behind them, that Brinksy would be fine sitting on the other end of the sofa and laughing through the next set of episodes, that their friendship wouldn't be diminished at all.

But that's not what Anthony wants, so he leans back in and lets himself kiss Brinksy's smile.


End file.
